Felipe Gonzalez

Felipe Gonzalez Marquez (5 March 1942-) was Prime Minister of Spain from 1 December 1982 to 4 May 1996, succeeding Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo and preceding Jose Maria Aznar. From 1974 to 1979 and from 1979 to 1997, he served as Secretary General of the PSOE.

Biography
Felipe Gonzalez Marquez was born in Bellavista, Seville, Spain on 5 March 1942, and he studied law in Seville and Louvain (Belgium), where he joined the social democratic movement. He became a professor of labor law and active in the outlawed PSOE in 1965, advancing to become its executive secretary in 1970. In 1974, he became first secretary of the restored PSOE, which was legalized after Francisco Franco's dedath in 1975. He built up a strong party organization with close links to the trade unions. At the 1977 elections the PSOE became the second largest party in Parliament. A relentless critic of Adolfo Suarez, he benefited from the latter's inability to cope with the country's economic problems, from numerous and increasing divisions among the right, and from the uncertainty hanging over the political system after the military coup attempt of 1981.

Premiership
Thanks to his overwhelming charm and charisma, the PSOE won an absolute majority in 1982. Under his leadership, the party won the elections of 1986 and 1990 with absolute majorities, while from 1994 he was forced to rule with the help of Catalan and Basque nationalists. He successfully sought to integrate the country into the European Economic Community, and subsequently became one of the major proponents of further European integration. As such, he benefited from his friendship with the socialist veteran, Willy Brandt, and from increasingly good relations with Helmut Kohl. He promoted further autonomy for the various regions, so that by 22 February 1983, there were seventeen autonomous regions with their own parliamentary institutions. He liberalized the country's social laws (such as abortion), and improved labor conditions through the introduction of a forty-hour working week. In the mid-1980s, however, he tried to consolidate the improvement of the economy (and reduce state debt) through a tighter fiscal policy, which triggered the opposition of much of the labor movement. Throughout his government, he sought to end the violence of the Basque terrorist organization, ETA, through the dual strategy of tough police action and negotiations. Excessively brutal police action against ETA and allegations of a subsequent cover-up led to growing opposition to his increasingly autocratic style of leadership in the 1990s. He lost the 1996 elections to Jose Maria Aznar owing to the unpopularity and the exhaustion of the PSOE after fourteen years of rule. Yet he had lost none of his personal appeal, which alone ensured a very respectable showing for his party, against all predictions. In 1997, he retired as PSOE Secrtetary-General, and he left the Congress of Deputies in 2004.